


That I am brave to love you

by I_am_sorry



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Drama & Romance, Fae & Fairies, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Royalty, Seelie Court, Unseelie Court
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 11:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_sorry/pseuds/I_am_sorry
Summary: There’s a ring. Steel of the winter fairies and black wood of the forbidden forests, the ring is made of both. Oikawa has had it for a hundred of years, and some days more.





	That I am brave to love you

 -i.

Oikawa is three hundred years the first time he crosses the forbidden forest. He sits under a shade and opens a book he picked on the human realm; his parents don't approve of him reading human things, but he is curious… the book is about a prince and a flower, maybe… He is not that sure. Oikawa thinks he likes the fox though.

It's the beginning of the year on the fairy realm. There's a festival that will last all the week. No one will care to look for him.

Oikawa is distracted enough reading when a voice interrupts him. He startles.

"I like that book."

Oikawa looks up ready to strike the fool who dared to come after him, but swallows hard instead. Green-hazel eyes look curiously at him…

_And Oikawa thinks they are pretty._

 

 

i.

There’s a ring. Steel of the winter fairies and black wood of the forbidden forests, the ring is made of both. Oikawa has had it for a hundred of years, and some days more. He will be king soon, he is still considered young, among his people, awfully young at four hundred. Oikawa’s father that has seen more than a millennia pass him by says it’s time for Oikawa to choose a partner, to settle down and chose the other half of himself.

Oikawa’s mother brings girls for him to see and dance with, their dresses as black as their hearts, their nails sharp and painted with the blood of young human maidens fool enough to fall for their charms, Unseelie all of them, just like him. Oikawa has no use for them.

Oikawa has no use for any of this nonsense, but he dances with them, smiles, flirts and twirls them around the Unseelie court again and again. His mother is pleased, his father nods his approval and Oikawa clutches at the ring hanging from his neck, thinking: not yet.

Not yet but soon. Oikawa has been waiting for a hundred years and some more won’t make a difference. He made a promise, the both of them did –and now it’s time for it to come true.

After he is done with the ball, Oikawa goes to his rooms and sits down on his bed –the entire palace is furnished in dark shades with black brilliant stone in the walls, and this worries him. The light here in the Unseelie kingdom is dim, the sun doesn’t care much for them, and it wouldn’t matter to him alone but…

But once he marries, once his consort arrives… it may become a problem. Still Oikawa will fix it, somehow. All that matters now is for the waiting to end.

Oikawa sighs, “Soon,” he murmurs and it’s a promise. It has always been.

 

 

ii.

Iwaizumi and his people are gold. Seelie. Lovers of the sun and good deeds, Oikawa’s parents detest them, and Oikawa’s people do as well.

But Oikawa made a promise long ago. Iwaizumi did too, he said yes to an eternity and time has come. Oikawa’s parents are overjoyed, their son, their only son has made possible what many generations of Unseelie Royalty haven’t managed since the Dark Age. The Seelie kingdom is in ruins, battered, bruised and bleeding –they belong to the Unseelie’s now.

And Iwaizumi stands tall as what he is, Oikawa’s prize. Between the blood, the stall smell of death, the carnage; he is there and Oikawa can’t reach him fast enough.

Iwaizumi looks at him with pain written in his eyes and Oikawa stops in his approach. Iwaizumi shakes his head, there’s disappointment and sadness in him and Oikawa can’t understand why Iwaizumi isn’t overjoyed now that they can be finally together.

Oikawa made possible the impossible for him and yet…

“Not like this,” Iwaizumi says rougly. “Never like this.”

Oikawa frowns, he wants to scream but he refrains. “I’m tired of waiting.”

Iwaizumi turns his head. “I can’t.”

“You said forever,” Oikawa accuses. “You promised.”

“Not at this cost,” Iwaizumi looks around them; at the trail of dead Seelies Oikawa has left behind him. “Not at the cost of their blood.”

“You lied,” Oikawa didn’t knew what the emotion that choked him a hundred years ago was; when he looked in Iwaizumi’s hazel-green eyes for the first time, when he touched him and kissed him afterwards. But he does know what the emotion he is feeling now is. “You lied.” Oikawa says furious. His chest hurts but he will ignore it for now. “It was all a ruse to make me weak.”

“Tooru,” Iwaizumi says firmly walking closer and touching Oikawa’s face with careful fingers; Oikawa inhales sharply.

“Forever.” Iwaizumi repeats the promise of so long ago, and lowers his hand –it comes stained in red, Oikawa knows is Seelie blood that has splashed on him.

 

 

iii.

“You are here.” His daughter says curious. Oikawa thinks she is beautiful, the only good thing his harpy of a wife ever gave him.

Oikawa nods.

“But it’s your birthday,” she pouts. “Almost eight hundred years, daddy.”

“It’s a long time,” Oikawa smiles to her.

“Well yes,” she jumps at his lap. “I am barely one hundred years daddy, you are old.”

Oikawa snorts amused. Not many would dare to talk that way to the Unseelie king who brought The Dark Age back. “Yep old.” He agrees with her, making her giggle.

“But is still your birthday!” She whines. “Why are you sad?”

"I am not sad," Oikawa answers, and is not a lie, not really. 

"There are many women waiting for you outside, they want to dance!" She bounces on his lap. "They want to become my new mommy!"

Oikawa's wife died some days after their child was born. She didn't die of sickness or after-pregnancy effects. No, Oikawa made sure of that; he poured poison on her dinner and made sure she choked on it. It was the only time he loved her, maybe, right then… with her lips blue and blood dripping from her nose, eyes open seeing nothing. She looked so beautiful as she died. 

"I am afraid I am not that good of a dancer," Oikawa tells her jovially to calm her down, she pouts some more but lets it go. 

"Your highness," a servant calls him. "There is a party of the Seelie Court outside waiting to see you."

Oikawa scrunches up his nose in disgust but waves a hand in permission anyway. His daughter looks at him with wide curious eyes but doesn't ask about it. 

"Congratulations on your birthday," Iwaizumi tells him and for a while Oikawa forgets how to breathe - forgets days, years, centuries of loneliness.

Oikawa forgets and for that the blow hits harder.

"My consort and I wish you many years more, my king." Another Seelie says, with respect. Ah yes… Oikawa had forgotten about him. The man Iwaizumi choose to marry after all. After everything. 

Iwaizumi's consort worships the ground he (Iwaizumi) walks on. Like a lost puppy docile with his master but rabid with the ones who cross him, some have said almost like a mad dog. It's almost funny and Oikawa would like to laugh at the joke but he can't.

"We thank you for all the years you have shown mercy to our Court." Iwaizumi says with something else buried deep behind his words.

Maybe what he means to say is, 'I thank you for the mercy you have shown to me', Oikawa doesn't know. He was too young once to understand it and now knows better, he is too old to believe in it, in him, in them. 

What is true is: after the conquest he stopped slaying Seelies. He gave back some of their power to them, he left the Royal family -Iwaizumi's family- alone and minimized damage. Oikawa did it for Iwaizumi. It doesn't matter now.

Oikawa dips his head.

Iwaizumi hesitates for a moment, looks at the girl on Oikawa's lap. "Is she yours?" 

"Yes," Oikawa says, curling a hand over her shoulder. She fills some of the emptiness inside him. 

Iwaizumi extends a hand but drops it after some minutes. "She's beautiful." 

It's over after that. Iwaizumi has a consort, the Seelie Court, people who love him, laughter and the sun to go back to; Oikawa in spite of being king to all the fairy realm, only has his daughter and darkness. 

 

 

iv.

Oikawa doesn't think much of it when he sees Kuroo stalking the gardens of his palace, doing mischief and freezing little flowers. He gives it time and waits for the Winter-King to approach him.

"What is it?" Oikawa asks, days later -when Kuroo has finally asked for a meeting with him.

Kuroo slouches in the chair he is occupying and huff slyly. "Can't I visit my friend?"

Oikawa looks at him pointedly, he is not fond of wasting time. Kuroo, and all the realm knows, he is not a patient male. 

Kuroo looks down and for a moment his easy-going face shatters, but the slip is gone as soon as it came. "I may seek your wisdom, oh great King," he says mocking. 

Oikawa doesn't react to the poking. Very little amuses him these days, the smell or sight of blood being the quickest way to put him in good humor. 

Kuroo slouches further and hides his face between his hands. "I am in love." He says it like a curse. 

Ah…

"You want a drink?" Oikawa offers. He has a bottle  made of mermaid tears and ginger roots. It's a strong drink, hard to come by and real expensive, is easy to get smashed with only two cups of it.

Kuroo shakes his head mournfully. "I am going to ask him to marry me today."

Oikawa sighs. "Well I don't see how I can help you."

"You have been in love with Iwaizumi for six hundred years, you have to tell me how its done!" Kuroo says exasperated.

And this time Oikawa does feel amusement, he chuckles and shakes his head. "You are an Idiot Tetsuro." 

Oikawa is the last person who would be ideal to give advice about love. He took the whole fairy realm to be with Iwaizumibelieving he was in love, he pursued his forever to have it become nothing. He opted to ignore it afterwards, let go all his youthful notions of love, got married and had a daughter. The truth of the matter is Oikawa is Unseelie, his kind doesn't know how to love. The truth of the matter is, these days he doesn't know if everything he felt for Iwaizumi was real or just an enchantment of the dark forest, or maybe Iwaizumi's own magic -wanting to buy time for his people, wanting a security to get mercy of the merciless.

"What if he says no?" Kuroo stresses.

"You learn to live with it." Oikawa answers.

He took off the ring years ago, but he never melted it. It has been a long time since he thought about it.

 

 

v.

The petals of the flower feel soft against his fingers. Oikawa thinks wistful of old days, of better days. 

Oikawa's daughter brought the flower to him. He knows she went to the dark forbidden forest to get it. She grew up well, became a beautiful female with sharp mind. "I hope it makes you a little happy daddy," she said nodding at the flower. "I know that place means something to you."

Oikawa acceted the flower and started to say that it wasn't like that -but he couldn't bring himself to do it, to deny the happiness he had back then during the eleven weeks Iwaizumiand him were together. 

Still now Oikawa can't bring himself to say that time didn't mean a thing. 

 

 

vi.

"We were happy here." Iwaizumi notes. 

Oikawa's fingers tighten around the chain with the ring. "We were." he admits softly, illusion or not, he knows he was happy here in the forbidden forest, once many centuries ago.

It's the beginning of the year and times are changing. Oikawa is getting weaker every day, it's not about war or about sickness, is not about him dying… is just nature deciding is time for a change. The King of Spring will put an end to The Dark Age, he gets stronger by the day and Oikawa can feel the power shifting in the air. 

Kuroo and Bokuto will make good Kings to the realm. In spite of everything, Oikawa feels pleased they got married.

Iwaizumi sits beside him. The shade Oikawa has rested on through the day, covering them both.

"Why are you here?" Oikawa asks wary.

"Your time of ruling is ending," Iwaizumi says calm. "You can retire now, get a partner to spend the rest of your days living in peace. You could do it here."

Oikawa snorts. "People say us Unseelie are cruel, but they have never met a Seelie quite like you, Hajime."

"Kyotani asked me for an annulment." 

Oikawa looks at him through his lashes, dangerously. "He kicks you out and you come to me?" 

"I never took it off, you did." Iwaizumi refers simply to the ring hanging of his neck. 

"You got married!" Oikawa snarls.

"You did it first and you even had a daughter." Iwaizumi answers back flatly.

"You told me no." Oikawa hisses.

"I told you forever!" Iwaizumi exhales exasperated. "Forever Tooru." 

"We were happy here." Oikawa repeats Iwaizumi's words after a good deal of silence.

"We could be again." Iwaizumi says looking him directly in the eye-

And forever is back, taunting him with its proximity, with its promise-

Oikawa sighs, closes his eyes and opens his mouth. "You are forever responsible for what you have tamed, Hajime."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Unseelie: Dark fairy.  
> Seelie: Light fairy.


End file.
